August Drabbles
by Relativity1953
Summary: The Winchester brothers take on some of the famous, but lesser, urban legends. Each chapter is a new story, though they will most likely be more than one drabble each.
1. The Scuba Diver in the Tree

Sorry! I haven't written fic for my daily posts since March - I almost forgot to post here as well. If you are interested in the art posts from the last few months, please visit my LiveJournal (same name). Thanks!

* * *

~ 8-01 ~

"Didn't that seem strange?"

"Unlike the rest of our lives?" Dean asked without looking up.

"You saw him. He was wearing a shorty."

"A what-now?" Dean spared a glanced but continued his ground search. The ghost kept appearing here but they had yet to find his remains. And it was quickly getting dark.

"A spring suit."

"Huh?"

"Wet suit with short sleeves and legs." His brother was still only half-listening. "Dean! We're on a burnt out trail on the edge of Los Padres National Forest!"

"Crap," Dean muttered, looking up. "Dude in a wet suit haunting a scorched forest trail?"

~ 8-02 ~

"No way." Then, Sam looked up, "No way!" spying something aquamarine nestled in the bend of a Jeffrey pine branch. Sam boosted his brother up to the lowest branch, then Dean climbed, dislodging the item.

"You know I hate admitting it," Sam said as Dean joined him. "But, you're right." He held a waterproff camera with a lanyard that read: Monterey Bay Scuba & Snorkling. On the other end was a diving glove with the remains of a hand.

"Never thought I'd see it," Dean smiled, watching the salted glove burn.

"I know," Sam laughed. "The Scuba Diver in the Tree."


	2. The Microwaved Pet

~ 8-03 ~

"So," Sam tried to understand, "Bobby told us your wife thinks you've got a... black dog around... here?" He looked around the kitchen they were currently standing in.

The old man rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Hell 'Retta," he mumbled, shaking his head. "Ain't a black dog in the fairy story type sense," he gruffly explained. "'spose it used to be a black dog, though," he mumbled. "More a dark grey, really," Harold continued. "Hair prob'ly burnt to black."

"I don't understand," Sam tried bringing the man back to the point.

"Damned microwaves musta radioactivated it. Like the Hulk."

"I-"

~ 8-04 ~

"It's OK, Sammy," Dean said, walking in from the parlor where he'd been talking with Loretta. "I got what we need." Then, turning to Harold, said, "we'll take care of it for you Harry."

Sam followed his brother from the house, still unsure of what was happening.

"Got our ghost's remains right here," Dean held up a small pink collar with a silver bone-shaped tag reading-

"Toodle?" Sam asked.

"Short for 'toy poodle' apparently. Little fluffball just had a bath and needed a quick dry..."

"No way," Sam laughed. "Our black dog is actually the Poodle in the Microwave."

* * *

_Harold and Loretta are loosely based on my grandparents. Though my grandmother never owned a dog (or any pet for that matter), we hear plenty of "Hell 'Retta"s growing up._


	3. The Nut and the Tire Nuts

~ 8-05 ~

Glenwood Springs Psychiatric Hospital – even the name felt stifling to Dean. He just needed some air, a walk on the grounds to keep the walls from closing in on him. There had to be a glen or woods or a spring somewhere around here. He'd walk the perimeter until he found something to calm himself.

Suddenly, he heard a thunk, a small metallic crash, a few tiny splashes, and finally a "Damn!"

Well, Dean Winchester had always been inquisitive.

He approached the southeast fence, and found a man kicking a flat tire on the ground near a jacked up sedan.

~ 8-06 ~

"Problem?"

Startled, the man turned.

"Yeah – was changing a flat when I knocked the hubcap and loose nuts into the stream. Now, I gotta walk to town, call for a tow, pay for it all... And, no offense, but I'd rather do all that than go inside and ask to use the phone in a nuthouse."

"If it was me," Dean smiled, "I'd just take a lug nut from each remaining wheel and use'em to get into town."

The man's eyes went wide and he blushed. Dean laughed, turned to walk away, saying-

"Might be crazy but I ain't stupid."


	4. Do You Know Who I Am

~ 8-07 ~

Sam Winchester was having a bad day. First, due to a faulty water heater, he took a very frigid morning shower. Then, the only food he could afford in the student union was bran flakes and skim milk. The sunny day promised by all the local forecasters was hidden by dreary rain and his roommate borrowed his umbrella without asking. All three of his pencils broke during economics and his new pen dried out right in the middle of intro to criminal law.

Now, he was running to make it to the most hated class in the history of ever.

~ 8-08 ~

Though every clock on campus said he had four minutes to spare, Professor Vencido – pompous, arrogant, and only person teaching this required class – had already started his lecture. Strike that – he was giving a surprise test.

Once Sam had finished his work, he rose and approached the professor's desk to place his blue book with the small stack already accumulated.

"Not so fast," Vencido said snidely. "You know my policy on tardiness. You were late. Therefore, you will receive a zero. And, as this test represents one third of your grade, you will probably be forced to retake this class."

~ 08-09 ~

In his head, a familiar voice said, "_if you don't stick up for yourself, Sammy, who will?_"

Retaking this absurd class, with this absurd excuse for a professor, wasn't the worst part. No, Sam knew a failing grade, even in a ridiculous and unnecessary general education class, would kill his scholarship.

"_Big, bold, a bit crazy – that's how we get things done!_" that voice piped up again.

"Do you _know_ who I am?" Sam demanded with authority.

"No," Vencido scornfully replied.

"Good," Sam smiled, shoved his blue book in the middle of the pile, and walked out of the classroom.


	5. Curses, Broiled Again

~ 8-10 ~

"This may sound like a stupid question," Dean started and Sam bit his tongue to keep from making a joke. "Did that ghost look orange to you?"

"I didn't really look at her coloring, Dean. I was busy trying to get a shot at her before she could hurl another bulb at you."

"OK, fine. It just seemed strange. I mean, most ghosts we run into," Dean went on while Sam ignored him, "have gone kind of grey... Get down!"

The words had been drilled into Sam's head at an early age, so even though he wasn't listening, he obeyed.

~ 8-11 ~

"That settles it," Dean continued as nothing had happened, "she was definitely orange. More specifically, she reminded me of those nasty dried apricots you made me try once."

"Dude!" Sam said with disgust. "First of all, I really liked those apricots – liked – past tense, since I won't be able to eat them ever again."

"And second?" Dean asked as he snickered.

Sam was about to ask what Dean meant when it hit him.

"I know what we're dealing with," he groaned. Ghost that looks like a dried apricot haunting a light bulb recycling plant?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah – the Tanning Parlor Death."


	6. Nobody Noticed

~ 8-12 ~

"Getting paid to bust a ghost," Dean smiled as they climbed the stairs to the building's third floor. "Nice to know there are a few people out there that consider our's a real job."

"Nicer still," Sam replied, opening the door to a cubicle-filled floor, "they were smart enough to get help before it hurt anyone."

They spread out, each walking down a different cubicle path, keeping the other in sight. The ghost hadn't hurt anyone... yet. But the dead, like the living, don't take kindly to people who try to terminate them. The Winchesters could attest to that.

~ 8-13 ~

They'd made it to the opposite side of the room without ghostly interruption.

"Guess we should-" Sam started but cutting himself off.

Dean turned, following his brother's eyeline, and saw a pudgy man in his mid-50s wearing slacks and a dress shirt with a loosened tie. He was sitting on the floor with his chin in his hands. Pouting.

"Excuse me," Dean began, then the man flickered slightly. They'd found their ghost. But, rather than being upset or afraid, he looked up at them and smiled.

"You see me?" he asked, voice filled with hope.

"Yeah," the boys nodded.

~ 8-14 ~

"Great!" he leapt to his feet – as much as a ghost can do such a thing – and wandered towards a darkened corner cubicle. Following with care, salt at the ready, the boys rounded the partition and found a man – their ghost's former body – slumped in a chair behind a desk.

"Five days!" the ghost told them, exasperation in his voice.

"What?" they asked, again in unison.

"Been there five days. Five work days. I'm not even counting the weekend right in the middle." He paused, a weary shrug then looked at them. "Heart attack," he explained. "And nobody's even noticed."


	7. The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs, p1

~ 15 ~

Dean sat down on the threadbare sofa with a sigh. It had been the third time he had had to tuck Sammy in for the night. The kid was having pretty vivid dreams lately and with them came a lot of movement. And, falling out of bed tended to wake Sam up. Finally, Dean tucked his own pillow and a duffel bag stuffed with towels into the bed next to his brother in hopes that the items would prevent him from rolling off the mattress again.

Then, he settled in to finish his homework before heading off to sleep himself.

~ 16 ~

It was about a quarter to eleven when he began reading his final assignment – the internal combustion engine and its impact on society easily holding his interest. So, when the telephone rang at eleven on the dot, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Dad had a system. As he may need to call at any time – day or night – he would wait for the call to connect, let it ring one and a half times, and then hang up and dial again. Dean waited for the second ring to cut off. Instead, it continued. He knew not to answer.

~ 17 ~

But the telephone continued to ring. Five, six, seven times. When it started its twelfth ring, Dean picked up – partly due to fear that his father could be seriously hurt and/or disoriented, partly because he was worried that the ringing would wake his brother.

"Hello?" Dean chewed on his thumbnail, hoping the call was a wrong number instead of his wounded father. When there was no answer, not even the sound of breathing, he became anxious. "Hello?"

Slowly, quietly, he heard the laughter start. Not happy, fun Sammy-like giggles. But menacing, taunting, evil sounding cackles.

"Who is this?"

~ 18 ~

Dial tone. The maniacal laughter had gotten louder and louder until it was replaced with the steady sound of the dial tone. And Dean had no idea who had called.

Feeling stupid – but not wanting to be careless – he got up and checked all the locks and salt lines. Once he was satisfied that the place was still secure, he sat back down on the sofa to continue reading.

At ten after eleven, the telephone began to ring again.

"Hello?"

Again, silence, then laughter, then dial tone. At twenty after eleven, the process repeated. At eleven thirty, it happened again.

~ 19 ~

At eleven forty, the phone rang again. This time, Dean wasn't so much worried as he was annoyed. It was clear to him that the call was a prank and he was getting angry that someone thought the situation was funny. Normal kids would have been in bed an hour or more ago and their normal parents would probably be asleep, too. Just because the Winchesters weren't _normal_ people didn't mean that calling so late wasn't extremely rude.

"Listen jerk," anger coloring his words, "your little joke isn't funny so quit calling me!" He smirked and hung up with satisfaction.

~ 20 ~

At eleven forty-five, well into his reading once more, the telephone began to ring and Dean jumped. He huffed out a breath of complete irritation. Snarling to himself, he picked up the receiver intending to give the caller a piece of his mind, but a voice on the other end spoke before he could utter a word.

"That wasn't very nice," the voice hissed.

"What?" Dean still couldn't believe the nerve of this dude.

"I said," the voice hissed again, sounding more ominous than the previous laughter, "that wasn't very nice... Dean."

Before Dean could respond, the call ended.

~ 21 ~

Dean sat stiffly, still clutching the telephone receiver to his ear, not snapping from his daze until his history book fell from his lap. He hung up the phone without really thinking and jumped when it began ringing immediately.

"Who is this?" he demanded.

"A friend," the voice sneared. "A concerned party."

"Concerned?" Dean asked. "Concerned about what? For who?"

Silence.

"Hello?" Dean was uneasy, his stomach getting queasy. "Hello!"

"Dean," the voice paused.

"Yes?" he finally was able to answer.

"Have you checked the children?" The demented laughter began again. Then the dial tone sounded.

"Huh?" Dean asked nobody.

~ 22 ~

Dean could no longer pinpoint what he was feeling. He had gone from anxious to angry and annoyed. Then, he was frightened, filled with dread. Now, he was confused. He sat stunned, unable to process his thoughts.

The telephone rang again and he answered just to see if the voice had something new to say. Or, perhaps he had somehow misheard the voice the last time.

"Hello?"

"Have you checked the children?" When Dean didn't answer, the voice hissed at him again. "Have you checked the children, Dean?"

Dean hung up the phone. Yep, no mistaking the message this time.


	8. The Surprisers Surprised, p1

~ 23 ~

"I'm bored," Tony half-whined, half-growled in the way that only teenagers could. He threw down his video game controller and said, "Let's DO something."

"And what would you suggest?" Zach asked. "There ain't nothing to do in this town."

"What about that car?"

"The what?" Cory laughed.

"Zach keeps talking about this dude whose renting out one of his mom's places," Tony smirked and Cory busted out a loud laugh.

"Not the dude, you idiot," Zach rolled his eyes.

"Zach's got a crush on the dude's car. Wants to take it on a date or something," Tony laughed.

~ 24 ~

"The dude's got a '67 Chevy Impala. It's a shiny black dream machine, man," Zach told them almost dreamily. "'Course, the dude's got an awesome muscle car, a marine tat, and the same name as a gun. Much as I'd like to, I ain't taking that ride for a test spin. I ain't suicidal."

"Name of a gun?" Cory asked. "You talking about Winchester?"

"Yeah, you know him?"

"No," Cory told them both, "but he's got a few kids. Oldest is in my mom's class."

"Maybe he's not such a badass then," Tony said. "He's a tamed family man now."

~ 25 ~

"Don't matter though," Zach said. "I saw him driving out two nights ago. He still ain't back."

"Yeah," Cory piped in, "and the teacher talk is that he's a widower." The only good thing about having a teacher for a mom was that, in this town, the single and divorced women gossiped like no one else. So, Cory got all the inside dirt about their fellow citizens.

"So?" Tony asked. Zach waited for the relevance as well.

"A dead wife – under mysterious circumstances, no less – and an ex-marine. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of that.

~ 26 ~

"Mysterious circumstances?" Tony repeated. "How do you know that?"

"In the kid's file or something. Mom took an interest in the guy." Cory's mother could find out anything about a kid at her school. And, would often use that knowledge to scope out the single fathers of those kids.

"I don't know what the guy does for a living," Cory continued, "but they think he's away a lot. And he don't spring for a sitter."

"Yeah," Zach agreed absently, "the dude's been gone, like, four times since they moved in a few months ago. And he's always away for days."

~ 27 ~

"Wait," Tony said, a wicked smile forming on his face. "You're saying that the scary dad is gone and his little grade schooler is left to watch after littler grade schoolers?"

"I guess," Cory said.

"So?" Zach asked.

"I got an idea," Tony told them. "Remember when we used to prank call people?"

"Dude," Zach sneered, "that is so lame. We haven't done that since we were the kid's age."

"And, why would we want to prank call a kid?" Cory asked.

"No, you idiots," Tony told them, "this is gonna be much better than a prank call." Tony cackled.

~ 28 ~

Cory and Tony sat outside the Winchesters' rented house, Tony with Zach's cordless phone. They watched from their hiding spot in the bushes while Zach expertly climbed to the second story, opening the rigged window of the master bedroom.

Cory had told Tony that the kid's name was Dean, and his friend used the knowledge to spook the kid even more.

They watched as Zach moved into position, quietly making his way into the boys', and pulling on a ski mask. Last, he took out the biggest knife he found in his mom's kitchen.

"Kid'll piss his pants!" Tony laughed.


	9. Babysitter, Surprisers, p2

~ 29 ~

Dean was confused. Everybody's heard that story – _the call is coming from inside the house!_ Scary the first time or two, but a stupid prank call to make.

Also, the prankster found out his name but not-

His thought was cut short when he heard a slight creek above him. It might have been quiet enough to go unnoticed by most people, but Winchesters weren't most people – Dad made sure of that.

Dean stood, silently climbed the stairs. The only stop he made before heading to the bedroom he shared with Sam was to the weapons stash in Dad's room.

~ 30 ~

Dean saw the shadow of a man in the room. He knew Sam was still safe because the last call asked if he'd checked 'the children.' Obviously, the man wasn't close enough to see there was only one real child in the bed.

Without a sound, he opened the door enough to slide into the room. That's when he noticed the knife the guy had. And, how he was getting closer to Sam.

"I suggest you back away from my brother right now," Dean said low and calm.

The guy turned around and Dean cocked the Beretta.

The guy screamed.

~ 31 ~

It didn't happen often, but John savored returning home ahead of schedule. However, as he pulled up to their current lodgings, he was met with a surprise.

Two teenage boys were running around the perimeter crying out for a third – who was running out the front door screaming. Each had a mysterious dark spot on the crotch of his jeans.

Looking back at the doorway, John saw Dean – one arm holding Sammy safely behind him, in his other hand was a Beretta.

John wasn't sure what had gone down but he could guess that these teenagers wouldn't bother them again.


End file.
